


Mirror Image

by moonflowers



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 'polishing the silver' sounds like a euphamism, M/M, Mentions of Voyeurism, Mirror Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowers/pseuds/moonflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During an extensive clean of the house, Jimmy stumbles across a mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Image

**Author's Note:**

> I'm reluctant to post this, just because everyone else's fics seem to have detailed plots and actual emotion, whereas this is essentially 'LOL I want to to see you two bang in front of a mirror.' Ah well.

The house was eerily quiet above stairs. The family had gone away for two weeks, and taken the minimal amount of staff with them, in the vaguely noted attempt to give those remaining behind some time off. No such luck, when Mr Carson was at the helm. Despite his going away with the family, along with Mr Bates and Anna, the butler of Downton had left a list of tasks as long as his arm to be taken care of in the family’s absence.  
Jimmy was mightily unimpressed by this. It was the third day of the marathon of extra work, and he had been given Carson’s instructions for him for the day via Mrs Hughes. He was to go up to a small wing on the second floor in the west of the house – mainly bedrooms that hadn’t been used for a decade or two, by his reckoning – to polish up any silverware or other decorative items of metalwork that may have needed seeing to. Naturally, that meant all of it. The housemaids had already given the rooms and hallways a brief dusting over to get rid of the worst of it, but that didn’t make his task any less gargantuan, and – in his opinion – pointless. There was no one to see it or use it, so why bother? Obviously he knew better than to say this out loud, though. Except to Thomas, of course.   
He smiled to himself as he walked the last flight of stairs up to the all but abandoned part of the house he was to spend the next day or so banished to. He couldn’t help but smile sometimes, when he thought of Mr Barrow. Damned if he’d tell anyone else that, though. As soon as he was aware of what his face was doing, he usually managed to stamp it back down and re-arrange his features into a look of nonchalance he had perfected over his time in service. He eventually reached the landing (how many bloody stairs did one house need?) and passed an unnecessarily large and ornate mirror. He stopped to preen for a moment – still got it Jimmy, you’ve still bloody got it – before turning down the corridor to tackle the first of the rooms.

Jimmy hated everything. Five minutes into the first room and he wanted to punch something. Preferably Alfred. It was somewhat of a no-man’s-land for ugly and unwanted gifts, it seemed. Candlesticks, gravy boats, mirrors and picture frames, little silver figures and cases of pointlessly small spoons. And all of it came under the category of ‘stuff Jimmy had to polish.’ There were shelves and shelves of it, some of it high enough above his head that he’d need to find a small ladder to get at it. Seriously, why hadn’t Alfred been asked to do this, or at least to help him? He could reach all the bloody tat better anyway, with his abnormal height. After a quick poke around in the other five or six rooms he had been appointed to polish the contents of, Jimmy decided he couldn’t put it off any longer, and went to collect everything he’d need to get the job done.

On his way to do so, he once again passed the obnoxiously big mirror at the top of the stairs. And once again, he paused to eye up his reflection. Thomas was always telling him he was vain; shaking his head as Jimmy smoothed his hair into the exact place he wanted it, or checking he didn’t have bags under his eyes. Laugh all you want, Thomas Barrow, he would think, but good looks don’t hurt, in our line of work. Jimmy also happened to know that Thomas adored the way he looked; he’d told him so often enough, in the three months or so that they’d been... together.   
His thoughts still lingered around Thomas and mirrors as he worked his way through the mountain of tarnished metalwork that afternoon. After wasting a good deal of time on half-formed thoughts, one particular thought formed in his mind and refused to be banished no matter how vigorously he polished the silver. Not that he really wanted to banish it, mind. It would be really rather nice if Thomas were to fuck him in front of that ludicrously large mirror.  
Now, just to tell Thomas...

~

“You what?” said Thomas as he stubbed out a cigarette in the ashtray next to his bed. 

“You heard,” said Jimmy, feeling his face heat but jutting his chin out determinedly in an attempt to hide his discomfort.

“I did,” said Thomas as he leaned back against his headboard, looking to where Jimmy sat at the foot of the bed, “I’m just having trouble believing it.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s very... daring.”

“You think it’s a stupid idea, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Thomas said dryly, “but that doesn’t mean I won’t be persuaded. I’ve done a lot of stupid things since I’ve met you, Jimmy Kent.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes, but smiled all the same. He wouldn’t say he was in love with Thomas, not just yet, but it wouldn’t take long if the damned man kept looking at him like that. “Well it’s lucky I’m so bloody clever then isn’t it? To balance out all the silly things I make you do.” 

Thomas snorted, and held out his good hand to Jimmy. “Come here, you ridiculous, wonderful boy.”

“You watch who you call ‘boy,’ Mr Barrow,” said Jimmy as he flopped down onto Thomas, chest to chest, taking care to elbow him in the ribs on the way down. “I’m all man, me.”

Thomas looked as though he was about to burst out laughing but stopped himself at the last second. It took a lot to make him laugh, Jimmy had noticed. “Mmm, don’t I know it.” There was a moment of quiet as Thomas stroked Jimmy’s hair and Jimmy simply let him, revelling in the attention. Jimmy had almost dozed off when Thomas spoke again. “Is this some weird sort of narcissistic thing?”

“Mmm? What?”

“You know,” Thomas paused in his tracing of patterns on Jimmy’s chest. It had taken a good couple of weeks of gentle and then not so gentle encouragement on Jimmy’s part to get Thomas to be so casual with his touches. “Like in the myth – you’re in love with your own reflection.” His voice was suddenly closer to Jimmy’s ear, thick and warm like melted chocolate, “You’d enjoy it wouldn’t you; watching yourself. Seeing the look on your own face as you come. Looking right into your own eyes as I take you.”

Jimmy couldn’t take much more after that. He kissed Thomas long and insistently, partly just because he wanted to, after hearing his syrupy words and the filth they promised. Partly to shut him up, because he was wrong. Jimmy didn’t want to just watch himself, he wanted to watch Thomas too. He loved to watch Thomas’ face while they made love; to know the intense pleasure he was feeling and that Jimmy was the one to take him there. Which may have been ever so slightly narcissistic, though just not in the way Thomas thought. There was another thing too – Jimmy had recently had the pleasure of discovering that his favourite way for Thomas to take him was from behind. But unfortunately, that meant he couldn’t see Thomas’ face, an obstacle that may well be solved with the help of the needlessly lavish mirror on the disused landing.

~

Jimmy spent the best part of the next afternoon polishing up the tarnished silver beasts and vines that wound themselves about the frame of the mirror. It felt important, somehow, that he do it and do it properly. Not that Mr Carson would notice of course, but for once, he wasn’t doing the extra cleaning to impress the butler. Task completed, he found himself giving the mirror itself a wipe over. The maids had cleared the dust off during their big clean a few days ago, but he wanted to give it one last go over all the same.   
He was just setting down his cloth and pushing his slightly sweaty hair back from his eyes to admire his hard work when a voice echoed on the stairs behind him.

“A job well done, Mr Kent.”

Jimmy span around to see Thomas standing halfway up the staircase, hands in pockets and a smirk on his face. Not much out of the ordinary, then. He felt his face slip in to a smile before he could even think to stop it. “Thank you, Mr Barrow.”

He nodded and walked up the last few steps, coming to a halt on the landing, a few feet away. The short distance felt a thousand miles and a few millimetres all at once. “But isn’t it the job of the housemaids, to do the cleaning?”

Jimmy shrugged, and watched Thomas’ eyes watching him. “It’s my job to polish up any silver in this wing. Mr Carson’s orders.”

“That may be so,” Thomas took a step closer, his hands clasped behind his back, and if Jimmy didn’t know this was all a game, he would have been unnerved by the severe look on the under butler’s face, “but not to scrape the dust off mirrors.”

“I were –“ he swallowed, and saw Thomas’ eyes follow the movement of his throat, “I were happy to do it.”

“Is that right?” Thomas asked, his voice low, as he slowly closed the gap between them, footsteps muffled by the thick carpet, “But I suppose I should thank you for the extra work all the same.”

Then he was kissing Jimmy, kissing him in a way that Jimmy was utterly convinced he could never get bored with, or find tiresome. In a way that he would never have thought possible after all the mess between them when he had first arrived at Downton. Jimmy had spent his youth dreaming of the soft kisses of all the girls that would fall in love with him, but all the foolish fantasies of his life before Downton could never compare to the man before him now. Not that he’d told him that, mind. Though he had the feeling Thomas knew anyway.   
When they had first started this – whatever it was – that they were embarking on, both of them had been wary of the other. Jimmy because it was all very new and utterly unexpected from his corner, and Thomas because he had found it hard to forget that their first contact hadn’t been asked for exactly, and he seemed terribly afraid of overstepping some invisible mark and scaring Jimmy away. Jimmy never wanted Thomas to have to feel like that again. He poured every ounce of fondness he could into every kiss they shared, and this one was no different. He kissed and nipped at Thomas’ bottom lip, for no other reason than he wanted to. Well, that and he knew it drove Thomas mad when he used his teeth.  
Thomas gently backed him up until his back met with the wall – not the wall, the mirror. He involuntarily gasped as Thomas pushed him against the smooth surface with his body, giving Thomas the accidental invitation to slip his tongue deeper into his mouth. Unable to stop himself, Jimmy arched his hips up in to Thomas’, knowing the other man would be able to feel just how much he wanted him. In fact, the hiss that escaped him as Jimmy slipped his hands over the back of Thomas’ trousers confirmed the sentiment to be mutual. 

No more words exchanged, Thomas grabbed hold of Jimmy’s shoulders and flipped him around so he was facing his own reflection in the mirror. He could see himself; face flushed and hair less tidy than he would like, livery askew and breathing hard. And there was Thomas behind him, holding his wrists above his head against the mirror, the coolness of the glass and the warmth of Thomas’ hands on his skin better than he ever could have guessed. He was resting his chin on Jimmy’s shoulder, his ever present smirk losing some of its threat when coupled with his own flushed face and mussed hair. There was a time that Jimmy had been unable to find any softness, or kindness, in Thomas’ face; but now he knew how to look for it properly, he realised that Thomas had never once looked at him with ill favour.  
Thomas must have noticed Jimmy was looking at his face rather than his own, because he began to kiss and mouth at Jimmy’s neck, pausing just long enough to mutter a few words into his ear.

“Don’t look at me,” he said, voice low and rough, “look at yourself. I want you to see your own face while I fuck you.”

Jimmy closed his eyes bit his lip to keep back a moan; yes, Thomas drove him half mad with want, but that didn’t mean he had to admit it just yet. However, he was unable to stop himself pressing back against Thomas just a little, his chest to Jimmy’s back and his arousal apparent against his backside. 

“Impatient, are we?” Jimmy didn’t have to look in the mirror to know Thomas was smirking as he spoke.

“Yes,” Jimmy opened his eyes and looked defiantly at Thomas’ reflection. “Besides, if you’re going to – to fuck me in the bloody hallway you’d better not be too long about it.” He swallowed, “Someone could see...”

Thomas snorted, and Jimmy would have elbowed him in the ribs if his hands weren’t still pinned above his head. “No one ever comes up here you dolt. Besides, you might like it; being watched.”

“I might,” said Jimmy loftily, as Thomas resumed kissing his neck, trying very hard not to convey just how much he might like it, if it wouldn’t land them both in prison.

“Mmm,” Thomas hummed and shifted to hold both of Jimmy’s wrists with one hand, the other trailing slowly over his chest and stomach.

“But Alfred blundering in and ruining it is the last thing I want to think about while you –“ he cut himself off with a hiss as Thomas cupped him through the front of his trousers.

“None of that, now,” Thomas purred in his ear, and stroked him gently through the fabric, Jimmy trying and failing to stop himself thrusting gently into his hand. “Keep your hands up there,” he said softly, and Jimmy was more than happy to comply, “and let me take care of you.”

“Oh bloody get on with it, would you?” He kept his arms above his head against the mirror as Thomas let go, trying hard not to simply turn the tables and kiss the breath right out of Thomas’ lungs. It would spoil the game.

“You’ve changed your tune. I thought you were worried someone might stumble across us?” drawled Thomas as he popped the buttons of Jimmy’s trousers.

“Oh who cares, let them look,” Jimmy said, frustrated and desperate for Thomas to just get a move on.

“Well well Jimmy, never had you pegged as an exhibitionist.” The ‘not after what happened last time’ went unsaid; that definitely would have ruined the moment. “Now keep still,” Thomas drew close to his ear again and nipped him gently, with one last tantalising whisper of “and be a good boy.”

Jimmy groaned in spite of himself and leant his forehead against the cool surface of the mirror.

“No Jimmy,” said Thomas gently as he slid Jimmy’s trousers and underwear down to his thighs, “look at yourself.”

And Jimmy found he couldn’t say no. Usually, during their trysts, Jimmy liked to have some semblance of control over the proceedings – despite Thomas’ insistence that it wasn’t the case, he was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that two men being together didn’t make either of them any less of a man. And Thomas let him have it; trusted him enough to let him lead the way when he had gotten uncomfortable, to have a certain level of dominance over him in order to allow him to keep some imagined sense of masculinity. It was... very sweet, actually.   
But this time was different. He knew all he would have to do would be to say ‘stop’ and Thomas would do so, but the thought of Thomas holding him against the mirror and making him watch himself as he was thoroughly fucked was just delicious.

Thomas fingers were kneading Jimmy’s backside, and he wondered how there could have ever possibly been a time when he had lived without this.  
There was a pause in his movements for a moment, and Jimmy heard the recently made familiar sound of a jar of petrol jelly being unscrewed. He almost rolled his eyes, because of course Thomas just happened to have jelly in his pocket. He’d probably put it in there last night, the moment Jimmy had let slip about the mirror, just in case the opportunity arose. The scheming bugger. Well, Jimmy couldn’t say he wasn’t glad for it.  
He braced himself and tried to relax as Thomas’ finger brushed against him. 

“Thomas?”

“Do you want me stop?”

“No. No of course not you daft bugger. It’s just... are you sure that no one’ll come up here?” He hated how small his voice sounded. 

“I’m sure. The family aren’t here, some of the staff are with them, and a lot of the others have been given a day off. The house is practically empty. We won’t be found out,” Jimmy turned his head at an awkward angle, and guessing what he wanted, Thomas leant forward to kiss him, carefully but firmly, reassuring, “I promise.”

“Sorry,” said Jimmy ruefully, “I might have ruined the mood a bit.”

“Not at all,” Thomas replied, “now shut up and turn around.”

“Yes Mr Barrow,” said Jimmy with a smirk as he turned to once again lock eyes with his own reflection, “now get to the good stuff.”

A moment later and Thomas’ slicked finger was dipping into him, Jimmy trying his hardest to relax, which of course was counter-productive in itself. He didn’t much care for the use of fingers. He very much enjoyed what came after, but he never really enjoyed Thomas’ fingers in him. He certainly didn’t dislike it, it just felt somehow clinical, and like a means to an end – somehow impersonal. He wasn’t sure if it helped or not that Thomas was always so careful with him; like he was winding a clock, not sticking his fingers up Jimmy’s arse. Soon enough, Thomas must have deemed Jimmy ready, as he removed his fingers, bringing his hand around to instead rest on Jimmy’s chest, pulling him closer, and oh shit Jimmy was going to have to change his shirt later.

“Are you ready?” his voice was quiet.

“Yes.” 

With no further preamble, Thomas eased himself inside him, and Jimmy clenched his jaw with the effort of keeping silent. Thomas gently stroked his chest and murmured things that Jimmy couldn’t quite hear, keeping still as possible so they could both adjust.  
When Thomas finally began to move, rolling his hips slowly into him, Jimmy moved his hands down, wanting to touch Thomas anywhere, everywhere, but was stopped by a harder thrust and a light scrape of fingernails over his chest from Thomas.

“Ah ah. Hands where I can see them please, Mr Kent.”

Biting back a retort, Jimmy slowly moved his hands back to where Thomas had originally placed them; above his head and resting on the mirror, fogging the surface slightly with the heat of his skin.  
He lost himself for a moment after that; lost himself in the pleasurable burn of Thomas inside him, of their bodies moving together in a way that was quickly starting to become familiar. The tension in his belly grew stronger, his breathing heavier, and without him noticing his eyes had slipped closed.

“Eyes open,” Thomas’ voice came firmly, but not harshly from just behind his right ear, “I want you to see yourself.”

Jimmy did as he was bid and dragged his eyes open, forcing himself to meet his own gaze in the mirror. The Jimmy reflected back at him looked nothing like himself: hot and bothered, absolutely wrecked, and a thousand miles away from the calm and tidy face he perfected in his own bedroom mirror each morning. 

“Look how pretty you are Jimmy,” Thomas spoke softly, and Jimmy almost said something harsh, because Thomas knew how much he disliked to be called pretty. But what he said next stopped him, “you truly are a wonder.” Before Thomas could say anything else soppy, Jimmy arched back to meet his thrust, the eyes of the Jimmy in the mirror widening in surprise and pleasure. Jimmy was slightly proud of the strangled gasp his movement drew from Thomas, but he didn’t have long to revel in it as Thomas increased his pace, the hand on his chest bunching in the fabric of Jimmy’s shirt, and the other moving further down to stroke his cock. 

“You’re leaving fingerprints on the mirror,” Thomas’ voice was low and rough, and Jimmy fought not to look up at his own hands, or at Thomas’ reflection just behind him. “And to think you spent such a long time cleaning it earlier...” his breath hitched, “only to leave it dirty again, smeared with your own fingerprints, sweat, and come.” 

Thomas’ strange, sadistic joy in reminding Jimmy of all his good work he was undoing had an unexpected effect on Jimmy. He moaned, loud enough that had they been in one of their rooms, Thomas would have covered his mouth. This he knew from experience. He rocked rapidly back into Thomas, losing any semblance of rhythm completely in his desperation to get off, feeling the hard lines of Thomas’ body pressing him to the mirror. He was ever so close, and he couldn’t help his eyes slipping closed as the moment approached.

“Eyes open,” Thomas whispered, “I want you to see your face when you come.”

That just about did him in. He opened his eyes to meet those of his reflection, and a moment later he was coming, dully aware a majority of it would have gone on the mirror or the carpet. So far gone was he, that he was ashamed to say he barely registered when Thomas finished, but there would be plenty of other chances for him to make up for it.   
Both spent, Thomas eased out of him with a wince, and they leant against the mirror and each other for support as their breath evened out. 

“Oh, bloody Nora.” Jimmy rested his forehead on the forgiving coolness of the mirror. He felt Thomas’ huff of laughter against the back of his neck. “That were...” he wasn’t entirely sure of what it was, to be honest, “That were something else.”

“Eloquently put.”

“Well you can hardly expect me to be Wordsworth so soon after... that.”

“I suppose not,” said Thomas as he pulled Jimmy close to him, straightening out both of their trousers and giving him a quick kiss.

They stood for a while in comfortable silence, Jimmy simply enjoying the afterglow, and the feeling of holding someone he cared about close, and assuming Thomas was doing the same. But as each moment ticked by, he grew more fidgety, knowing that it was drawing ever closer to dinner time, and though there was no family to serve, one or both of them would soon be missed. Thomas picked up on his mood, of course he did, and with one last kiss on the forehead pushed himself up and away from the mirror, gently pulling Jimmy with him. 

“We’d best get going. You’ll need to change.”

Jimmy hummed in assent, before glancing down and catching sight of the numerous smudges and spatters they had left on the previously flawless surface of the mirror. “Damn.”

“What?” Following Jimmy’s line of sight, Thomas saw the mess, and raised an eyebrow. “Well Mr Kent, it seems you have some more work to be doing before dinner after all.”

“What the bloody hell do you mean? I’m not cleaning this lot up by myself.”

“See you later Jimmy,” with one last smirk at Jimmy’s outraged expression, Thomas stalked off down the stairs, gracefully ignoring the cloth Jimmy threw at the back of head.

“Come back here, you bastard!”

Thomas of course, did no such thing, and Jimmy resigned himself to his fate, muttering away about various plans to considerably shorten Thomas Barrow’s life as he began to dab tentatively at the mirror. Of all the stupid ideas...

When, approximately three minutes later, he heard Thomas come back up the stairs, he said nothing, but continued to wipe down the mirror, utterly convinced that some trace of their activities remained. And when Thomas knelt beside him and picked up a cloth to help him with the imagined smears, he still said nothing, but instead slipped his other hand into Thomas’, and they both grinned like idiots while they worked, each carefully not meeting the other’s eye in their reflections.


End file.
